Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 62637 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62637 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
The sound of moaning reaches a fever pitch as the rocks around me start to move and shake. Pieces of rubble bump against my feet. I frown down at the alabaster ground.
“What,” he says again, “will you give or sacrifice?”
“To you?” I ask.
“I do not rule the Abyss, you stupid god.” Bannik laughs. “I’m merely her voice, and she wants to know what you will give?”
“Who is she?”
A female voice starts laughing; it echoes through the walls. “I collect. I collected from your brother, and I’m very much looking forward to collecting from you.”
“One sacrifice?”
“What do you hold most dear?” the same female voice asks.
I stare straight ahead. “I admit, it’s always been my power. Since I don’t have Kit here, I’ll have to say that my most prized possession is the eye of Horus.”
“Idiot.” Bannik spits onto the ground. “You’d give up what affords you the most power? Why? Why would you do that?”
“Shut up!” the female voice yells. “Shut up!”
“WHY!” Bannik jumps to his feet and starts pounding his bare chest. His movement allows me to notice that his leather pants are in tatters; he doesn’t even have shoes on. I can hear the moans from his brothers. And yet I stare him down and wonder where it all went wrong. How the greatest of Heaven decided they would at one point just… give up.
“Why?” I ask. “Why did you fall?”
“Why?” he repeats, “did you descend to the depths of the fallen?”
“Love,” I answer simply.
He nods his head, smile sad. “Is that not why we do what we do? It’s either love or power. Every single time.”
“Power for you?”
“Love,” he rasps. “Not the kind you are experiencing.”
His words confuse me. I’m still frowning when the female voice shouts, “MAKE YOUR CHOICE!”
“My eye,” I say. “I give you the Eye of Horus.”
“I wouldn’t,” Bannik warns. “She collects power. She’ll use it—”
He falls to his knees in agony, screaming until his voice is hoarse, but even in suffering, he reaches for me and shakes his head as if to say no, don’t do it; it’s not worth it.
I wonder more about his story, this fallen angel.
He flips onto his stomach and digs his hands into the stone beneath him. Blood runs down his fingertips.
His back is covered in scars.
And where his scars are, I see two slants of protruding wings. I know what will happen next, they will grow, and every time they get big enough, they will get cut as a reminder that he’s no longer an angel.
He is fallen.
He no longer watches.
He waits.
And his wounds will never heal in this place.
Bannik looks over his shoulder at me; his eyes go from black to blue as if he has a moment of clarity. He reaches for me. “She is a nine-tailed fox, and she is your destiny. But I cannot see beyond the betrayal. The forest. And what she gave. You wanted to save her. But she beat you to it, and she lost something valuable to you both, causing you to not meet until now.”
I exhale. “Thank you, Watcher.”
Bannik’s eyes widen. “I am no longer a Watcher.”
“You are what you believe you are,” I say simply. “Just because you are in darkness does not mean you cannot see light.”
I use the last of my power then, the last of my light.
I use my star.
The star of Horus, just as valuable as my eye, and I show him what he hasn’t seen for too many years to count.
Stars being reborn.
His ability to be better.
To repent.
It’s the last piece of light I have, and I give it to my enemy. The enemy of the immortals, of the Creator, the fallen.
But what good is light if you don’t use it on the darkness?
I smile as I fall to the ground.
“You owe me your eye!” the female voice says. “I’ll save her. I’ll save her if you give me your eye, the great Eye of Horus.”
“Sacrifice.” I reach toward my face in utter darkness and press a fingertip to my eye, and smile. “Doesn’t count unless it costs everything you have. Take my eye, witch, and let me sleep.”
“Gods do not sleep in the Abyss; they toil.” She cackles. “What will you do when you can no longer see, Horus?”
“We don’t need eyes to see,” I shoot back. “Take it before I leave you.”
Searing pain stabs me in the chest, rising up toward my chin, then finally my eyes. I’ve never understood what it felt like to have something taken from you, almost like your soul leaving your body.
Just like Bannik’s wings have left him.
My eyes have left me.
I smile the entire time. I smile through the pain.
She laughs.
But who will be laughing in the end? I have to believe justice will prevail and that the immortals back on the earth plane will win.